Paris ne vaut pas une messe! - A Huguenot IN AAR

[coz1]

Well, it's taken me some time to read through this, Milites, but I am so pleased that I did. Stunning graphics and a clear eye towards the direction you want the history to go combine to make this a superb AAR! I'm thankful I've caught up just in time to see Nicholas' push towards the Catholic block.

And did I saw the graphics were great? Well, let me repeat that. And they are getting better in each update. Very nice.

[Enewald]

good to have a lot of guarentees. Might actually help some poor nation in joining you.

Nice first pic!

[Milites]

@ Qorten: Thanks, I originally thought of using it as an allegory over the oath of the marshals, but decided to use it in this update again.

@ balkanite: Thank you, I got a lot of inspiration from rob though

@ phargle: I'm glad that you could find it in yourself to read this piece oh Knytling king

Well as for religion, do you mean within France or Europe in general?
Either way, to take the middle road here's a map from chapter XXI, 1616:



It is slightly outdated as of now with some countries and provinces converting to the various branches of Christianity.

@ coz1: I'm glad to have you on board! As for the graphics, the great thing is that you get better and better the further you progress.
For an example try to compare the religious map from the prelude to the one I just posted above.

@ Enewald: Cheers, I hope it'll yield some results.

[Enewald]

Too many catholics and catholic nations. Annex some of them to make the map clearer?

[phargle]

<3 the maps. Oddly, France in my own game has disintegrated into rebellion due to so many provinces going protestant. And England is a champion of Catholicism after an experiment with tolerance resulted in rebellion and disorder. I am used to EU2 and am surprised to see the Reformation be so brutal. I <3 it.

[Milites]

I don't remember much of my EU II days, but the reformation there was pretty unchangeable IIRC.

I do remember one England incident where I had converted most of my provinces to protestantism only to get a historical event that force converted me back to Catholicism. Boy was I pissed

Also you can expect a more brutal change in mind with Nicolas. Where his father had developed a strong sense of mercy and disdain for unneeded slaughter through his campaigns during the Wars of Religion alongside Condé, the new king was mostly raised by the queen mother and de Bonne (who wasn't nearly as forgivable as dear old Henri).

[Nikolai]

Yeah, EU3 is much better in that respect.

[Nikolai]

I had a game as Spain in EU2, where I was THE single most powerful nation on Earth(of course) and an economy that was fluorishing. Then *boom* I was declared bankrupt.

[Milites]

I had a game as Spain in EU2, where I was THE single most powerful nation on Earth(of course) and an economy that was fluorishing. Then *boom* I was declared bankrupt.

Had the Protestants anything to do with it per chance?

[Nikolai]

You were playing pretty historical, then.

No, but EU2 was strictly historical in it's events, regardless of the actual ingame situation.

[Winner]

Ireland is protestant?

[Milites]

Yup, it's a result of Parliament losing the ECW.

It's described in Chapter XX - Baptism of Fire

[Milites]

Chapter XXXII – The New France




***
Redrawing the Map
***

The kingdom of France had been vastly expanded after the Bourbon succession with new land being gained both during the rule of Henri IV, the Marshals and Nicolas I Henri. Naturally many of these new provinces were already dominated by either Huguenots or ethnic French who welcomed their new masters with great joy. But that was not the case in the newly acquired Spanish provinces and in the former duchy of Lorraine. Here a majority of the populace was either Catholic or of another ethnic stock than French thus almost immediately sparkling a tense situation between ruler and ruled. At first the French government sought to combat the unrest in the provinces by stationing several regiments in the new lands. As a consequence the Royal Army (32,000 men) was redeployed to Lorraine while the Army of Flanders (22,000 men) was put in quarters in French Catalonia. However this situation didn’t yield enough results so the king and his cabinet both decided that a new order of day was needed in France. The old division of provinces would have to be revised with the addition of new conquests. Consequently, the newly taken territories were either merged into old French departments (as were the cases with Spanish Navarre and the county of Hainaut who respectively were integrated into French Navarre and the Isle-de-France) or simply created as new French provinces such as Lorraine and the March of the Ebro. The latter of the two was a creation of Rohan who proposed the name of the province as a reference to the old Frankish buffer zone of the Marca Hispanica. This was mainly done to add some sort of historic claim to the land, but also because it would logically mean that France considered Barcelona a natural province of hers as the city had been the capital of the ancient Spanish March.

Provinces of France[1]

Of the old marshals who had guarded France during the minority of Nicolas Henri only two took part in the new king’s cabinet and Conseil des Affairs. Francois de Bonne had died in his chambers at the Louvre shortly after the estates had honoured Nicolas Henri. At his deathbed the young king was close to tears as the old man had been like a grandfather to him who had been robbed of his beloved father at a young age. De Bonne was posthumously elevated to the status of Marshal General of France and his possessions and title as duke of Dauphine passed to his son in law Charles de Blanchefort. He was buried after a splendid procession near the tomb of his old comrade Henri IV and a marble relief describing his campaigns against the Spaniards in the summer of 1595 was erected around his ebony tomb[2]. Yet both Rohan and Sully prevailed still and held significantly sway in the decision making of the sovereign. Rohan had been elevated to governor of all Bretagne while Sully was in charge of the affairs of Champagne and Picardy. Many grumbled over the nepotism shown by Nicolas, but the king was a firm believer in the ideas of ancient Augustus who had run his administration based on talented men while making sure that neither gained enough power to challenge him. This fitted Sully well and the old warrior promised Nicolas to “make royal authority supreme in France and France supreme in Europe.” But to make France supreme the country needed to continue its aggressive foreign policy towards the Habsburgs and their Catholic henchmen. As a result Nicolas decided to plan the surrender of the last batch Alsatian independence to France. It would take some years to create the needed documents and persuade the prince to leave his throne, but Nicolas was confident that it would succeed. One way or another.

Strasbourg is, has and will always be French!

***
The Fronde, what Fronde?
***



Although the peasantry had had no reason to complain under the benevolent rule of the first Bourbon monarch they were getting increasingly annoyed and disturbed by the rise of power in the Louvre. Despite having sworn allegiance to Nicolas certain members of the more prominent rural classes began to conspire against the increasingly centralization from Paris. The recent burden from fighting a great war against Spain and supplying food and goods to the enormous armies beyond the Pyrenees had made many communities enraged. As the new division of France also included new and ambitious laws and regulations it proved to be the last incident needed to spark a popular revolt amongst the lowest estate of the realm. Revolts soon broke out in the minor provinces of Calais and Burgundy, although the garrison in Picardy soon quelled the rebellion in the first province almost without bloodshed.

Popular revolts

Other revolts occurred in the Guyenne and in Poitou, but were either peacefully dissolved or crushed under the boots of the French Army. This was, however, not to be the case in Burgundy where the peasant leaders demanded autonomy and freedom of taxation to such a degree that Nicolas couldn’t be bothered asking twice if they wanted to surrender. Although faced with impossible odds (the entire Royal Army had moved into Burgundy from Lorraine) the rebels stood their ground and used their slings (Fronde in French thus the name of the popular opposition) as good they could only to suffer an extraordinary defeat. Half of them lay dead on the field when night came and the remaining rebels were fined heavily and the ringleaders either executed or exiled as serfs to the prince-bishopric of Liége.

Peasants, bah!

Only too late had the first French estate seen the dangers they had put themselves in by willingly accepting absolutism. Their only hope would be that other estates realized this also and joined them in revolt or that the new king would act as his father had done and “guaranteed them a chicken in the pot every Sunday.” If that would be enough to quell the hunger for freedom only time would tell.

[1]I did my best to follow the division of provinces according to a map found in Lord Russell of Liverpool’s book Henry of Navarre. Can also be found online here .
[2]See chapter V

[coz1]

Don't these peasants know what's good for them? Nice work in the Rhineland.

[phargle]

It's pretty hard to put together a peasant rebellion against that kind of strength. I also would like to say that "redrawing the maps" is a terrific pick-up line.

[Enewald]

Shouldn't it be Ile de France?
Or why is it not Isle in paradox games?

And soon to conquer Neustria and the rest of Austrasia?

[Winner]

Peasants are never happy.

France is growing and consolidating. Few more years and a new war can begin

[Milites]

@ coz1: If they are starving and won't submit to steel I'll just have to give them cake.

@ phargle: Heh, with the strenght of France (+ 60,000 men) I find it kind of funny/sad that they even try.

@ Enewald: In game the name is Ile de France, but on the map I used as blueprint the name was Isle de France. Likewise Gascogne is Gascony etc..

@ Winner: Yup and changes are going to happy within the Holy Roman Empire.

[Milites]

Chapter XXXIII – And Quiet Flows the Rhine


***
Our Lord, Austria Arise!
***


Throughout the most Holy Roman Empire, one thing echoed through the minds of princes of all the Christian confessions; Spain’s Habsburgs had proven to be a rather incompetent and inbred bunch not capable of reigning the Empire, let alone style themselves as “for ever Augustus.” Disillusioned, the electors began to wonder who to elect. The incumbent emperor in the year of our lord 1629 was Philip of Spain and he had been more than a broken man after the peace of Madrid with France. As such it was believed that he would not last long on the Roman throne. But who would then rule after Philip? The old emperor had no heirs of useful character (and even if he had had one, it would have been hard for him to get his candidate elected) and as such it seemed that Imperial rule from Madrid would come to a close with the death of Philip. The Protestants might have wished for Nicolas to take over the mantle and defend them from the Habsburg Catholics, but on the other hand they feared the power a French emperor would be able to wield by uniting the most populous country in Europe with the fealty of the hundred nations of the Empire. No, it wouldn’t be France’s time to rule the Empire of the German Nation; rather the electors looked to Austria in order to keep the status quo of Europe. The Austrian archdukes had fought wars against the Turks and retaken much of Hungary while rooting out the Protestant faiths in Bohemia and Württemberg, and even though they had suffered defeats at the hands of the Bourbons they had always held the upper hand at the negotiations, despite the well known French ambition across the Rhine. In 1630, Philip died and the electors chose Albrecht IV of Austria as their new sovereign at an Imperial diet in Munich. The French delegation left the council in anger and threatened to pull back their support of the most vocal Protestant electors.

The electors speak.

This proved to be a serious mistake. Albrecht was no fool and immediately saw the tiny crack in the Protestant armour. Soon his own diplomats carried Austrian guarantees and letters of Friendship to the German princes, Protestant and Catholic alike. Nicolas didn’t care much as according to the Charlemagne Plan, the French armies would soon cross the border into Austria anyways as a response to the Habsburg scheming and expulsion of French merchants. Yet once again, Albrecht proved a cunning adversary and revoked the ban in the Austrian lands while convincing the regency in Madrid to expulse French merchants there[1]. Without a valid reason for war Nicolas backed down grumbling. He wouldn’t risk his attempts at winning Germany because of one incident with the newly elected emperor, but to Albrecht it was an important victory as the French diplomatic offensive had been seemingly stopped.

Albrecht IV of the Holy Roman Empire

***
Imperial Opposition
***

In some ways the Austrian inheritance came as a blessing to France, in others it was a curse. Nicolas was getting distracted by the power games within the Empire to such a degree that he failed to see the troubles and tribulations the wars had caused within the French society. He was almost absent when the first Fronde had erupted in Guyenne, Poitou and Picardy and when the nobles within the first estate began to plot and bicker as they always did, the young king was more concerned about the progress of negotiations with some obscure and obstinate Protestant Prince on the Rhine. The estates were demanding a sovereign that would take care of them and engage himself in the internal situation before looking outwards. Sully tried to stress this to Nicolas, but was brushed aside by Rohan who loved the king’s interest in the fields of foreign policy (which is somewhat logical as Rohan had originally been made part of the Triumvirate because of his expertise on matters abroad). As the years passed Sully and Rohan continued to compete with each other over the favour of the king, for with the king’s favour was the policy of France. The young monarch had a hard time at first getting to know the two old men and their schemes and games, but in the end his talents began to serve him well. By 1632 he had completed the conversion work in the March of the Ebro and in the former Spanish Navarre. This won Nicolas some much needed prestige on the home front and strengthened him in the German Empire where Albrecht had more or less taken over.

Conversions in the South

But although the Austrian influence continued to rise[2] Nicolas couldn’t let the matters of the Empire be. He firmly believed that the Protestant princes needed and wanted him as their liege although it was clear to most that they really did not - at least not at that moment. Yet even as the nobility and peasantry were trying to find each other in order to combat absolutism events changed drastically in Germany. The Prince of the small protestant country of Ansbach died without any successor and left his throne in the hands of Nicolas. This was immediately disputed by emperor Albrecht who saw any further French gains within the Empire as anathema to the Catholic cause. Sensing the danger, Nicolas immediately demanded the annexation of what remained of the principality of Alsace such that his new duchy in Germany could be accessed easily (but also in order to send a message of resolution to Albrecht). The Prince gave in and as such Nicolas Henri’s plan regarding the Rhine had succeeded, both banks were now either in French hands or occupied by allied powers. The alarms immediately sounded in the Austrian palaces. The French offensive had been resumed and Albrecht was certain what to do…

Across the Rhine!

[1]Austria revokes embargo, Spain issues one.
[2]Several electors change allegiance to Austria

[Wombats O' War]

The Austrians are going to lose more than their pride when they decide to challenge the Huguenot Empire...

And may I say, the quality of your updates are simply amazing. Beautiful pictures and maps, along with well-written entries make for an awesome AAR.